I was bored

I was a little bored yesterday so I started mucking about with a pack of cards. Never before had I managed to build anything at all, let alone this gravity defying marvel of engineering.

Me on the Harbour Bridge

A picture from the top of the south-east pylon of the Harbour Bridge

Christmas etc

People over here don't seem to care about Christmas as much as everyone does back home. We only heard two Christmas songs over the festive period, only saw one Christmas tree and never saw any shops which were especially busy. There was no atmosphere about the place like you get back in Scotland where you can't leave your house without hearing or seeing something Christmas related.

We went out on Christams Eve to a couple of bars but as usual it wasn't worth the money we spent.

Christmas Day was spent on Bondi beach which was absolutely heaving. Many people were wearing santa hats with their swimwear. I guarantee they were all British.

We had our Christmas dinner in a restaurant in Bondi. It was steaks for Swag and Mac. I decided to have a chicken burger as i felt that poultry was slightly more festive.

We had our real Chrismas dinner on Boxing day when we roasted a turkey joint with bacon and roasted a large tray of potatoes too. It was quality.

Earlier in the day we'd taken a walk across the Harbour bridge and climbed the south-east pylon to get a good view of the Opera house and Circular Quay. We'd been on planning on watching the start of the Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race but we knew neither when it started or exactly where the yachts started from.

The Hoff

In an inspired move, The Hoff appears on Pepsi posters here in Oz. Sorry it's sideways.

The Singapore Crew

A pic of the us with our friends from Singapore. (from left to right: me, Grace, Lawrence, Adriana, Mac)

Raffles Hotel

The famous Raffles Hotel in Singapore, only five minutes down the road from our hostel.

One more Pic

That's Mac asleep in a shopping centre for the second time in ten minutes. It's only half seven in the evening. What a lightweight.

Another pic

That's Hong Kong by night as taken from the top of Victoria Peak. Quite a view.

Some pics

That's me standing at the south tip of Kowloon with Hong Kong Island behind me.

Sydney so far

Well that's me been in Sydney almost two weeks so I should probably give an update of what I've been up to for the last fortnight.

It all started with our transfer bus failing to pick us up at the airport. After phoning the hostel we found out that it was because the transfer buses didn't run as late as our arrival time, about eight o'clock at night. This meant we had to queue for a taxi instead. Then upon arriving at our hostel we found the reception shut and were told we had to find the night manager to cehck us in. Finding the guy took about half an hour but we needn't have bothered for all the use he was. He didn't seem to give a damn about his job, he just took our passports and gave us our room keycards without actually showing us which room was ours. Once we found our room we just dumped our stuff and started walking towards the city centre. We met up with Swag just outside his hostel then walked up to the opera house to have our first look at that and the harbour bridge. We couldn't help laughing when we were all standing together for the first time in eight or nine days on the other side of the world.

Since then we've not done much. I've been trying to find a job but it's not really gone too well so far. Mac and Swag have spent a lot of time sunbathing and Grieveing on Bondi beach. We managed to find a couple of rooms in a shared house in a suburb called Lewisham which isn't too far from the city centre. We've been out a few nights but for a while didn't really know where all the busy bars and clubs were until last night where we discovered that the Darling Harbour area is the place to go for good nightlife. Oh yeah, we've eaten quite a few steaks, but when you can get a steak for AU$5 you'd be crazy not to!

Yeah, I know it's been a while

Ok, so i've not been updating this as regularly as I should but I've been doing other things.

Last time I posted I was in Singapore and about to go out for tea. We went back to Sizzlers restaurant in the Suntec Centre where Mac had yet another steak. I decided to be a bit different and had roast chicken in a honey, mustard and mango glaze. Slightly strange combination but it worked. The best thing about Sizzlers was the all you can eat salad bar since Mac and I had barely had any fruit or veg (fries don't count I'm told) since leaving Falkirk. Needless to say we more than made our money back in salad and soup alone. After that meal we decided it would be a good idea to take a walk round Toys'r'us. Toys are cool. We then took a walk down to the Singapore river to check out the statue of the Merlion which is half fish and half lion. Apparently it's the most famous symbol in Singapore, although I'd never heard of it. Again we just KO'd when we got back to the room. Walking around in 25-30C heat with 80 odd percent humidity is hard work.

The next day Mac and I decided we should check out Chinatown so we got the MRT to the station called Chinatown and got out to look around. Strangely, we didn't see much that looked remotely Chinese, then we got lost trying to find stuff that did look Chinese so we just headed back up to Orcard Road so that Mac could buy his shirt from Topman. This was now Friday evening, Mac hadn't had a drink in a week and we'd seen a really busy bar at the entrance to the Suntec Centre so we got a bit dressed up and decided that after dinner (another trip to Sizzlers) we'd go out for a couple of drinks. We started out in that bar which was called Balaclava. The drinks were extortionate, between five and six quid for a single vodka and coke, but it was heaving and the music was quality. They had a band playing called The Unexpected which sang a load of covers and they were absolutely kick-ass! The chick which did most of the singing was fantastic and managed to pull off a lot of songs that you could only imagine a guy doing. Songs by Green Day, Oasis, Led Zeppelin, U2 and even System of a Down were all carried off brilliantly by the band.

It had just past midnight, the place was starting to empty and Mac looked like he was falling asleep so we decided to see if we could find somewhere else to spend a few hours. He started chatting to a pair of local girls to try and find out where we should go next. They suggested we go with them and a guy called Lawrence to a bar called Rouge so we jumped in a couple of taxis headed there. We spent the rest of the night there, drinking, dancing, chatting and listening to another quality band which covered Take Me Out and I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles). As you can imagine Mac and I were bombscaring quite considerably by this point. Well I was, Mac was acting a bit more sober for reasons I'll not go into. The bar shut at four and as we were leaving Lawrence asked us where we were staying. When we told him where our hostel was he told us that he worked at the massive Intercontinental hotel across the road as the sales and marketing manager. Then he said that he had a spare room in his flat, pointed out that his place was nicer than our hostel and invited us to crash at his place for our last couple of nights. After a quick huddle Mac and I agreed that the comedy value of taking up the offer to stay with some random punter that we'd known for four drunken hours far outweighed any possible risks so we said yes. We then got a taxi to the hostel, quickly packed and checked out and headed off to Lawrences flat.

The next day we met up with Lawrence and Adriana, his secretary who we'd met the night before, and headed off to try to see a bit more of Singapore. We took a walk through Little India, saw a little green bird tell peoples fortunes and had our own fortunes told by a cup full of sticks in a Chinese temple. I'll explain that one when I get home. We then took a walk round the Asian Civilizations Museum where I learned a bit more about the history of Singapore and Mac sat on a lot of benches. After that we got something to eat and headed off to a Balinese styled bar somewhere in the forest on the outskirts of the city centre.

I don't know/remember what the bar was called but it easily the coolest bar I have ever been to. It's made up of little huts on the side of a hill in the forest and we ended up sitting in our own private hut which felt like it was in the middle of nowhere. I don't know how to explain just how cool this place was but hopefully you'll all get to see the pictures and videos at some point. We drank quite a few vodka and cokes during happy hour, then when that ended we bought a bottle of vodka, Skyy nonetheless, for the table and drank that too. At some point between arriving at seven and leaving at half five in the morning (three and a half hours after the place was supposed to shut) Adriana pulled out a tube of henna so we all started writing on each other. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Mac got a few Chinese symbols written on his arms. One meant peace, the other meant something that he can explain to you all. I wrote "total" on his right forearm and "love" on his left. He wrote "psycho" on my right arm and Lawrence wrote some Chinese symbols on my other arm. He claims it meant "assassin" but I'm convinced it meant "I like goats" or something. Before we left, Lawrence's cousin Grace turned up with another litre of vodka which we somehow failed to finish. Yeah, I know, a bit of a poor show.

When we left at half five we headed to the beach to watch the sunrise . The beach was bouncing at six in the morning with old folk doing Tai Chi, people rollerblading!? and people camping on the beach. There was even a 24 hour McDonalds there. We ended up not watching the sunrise as after 15 minutes of waiting it hadn't appeared yet and Mac and I had to catch our flight to Sydney at 9am. We just headed to Lawrences, packed our bags, said our goodbyes and jumped in a taxi for the airport knowing full well that the last time we got in a plane half cut (Zante '03) neither of us enjoyed the experience. We got checked in fine and while we were waiting in the departure lounge got talking to an Aussie guy from Newcastle who gave us his phone number and address and told us to look him up if we were up that way and wanted to go out for a few drinks. Thankfully I slept for a lot of the flight although it didn't make me feel any better.

So I'm now in Sydney but I'll tell you what we've been up to here some other time because I'm starving and really feel like having a smoky barbeque and bacon King Kong filler from KFC. Mmmmm, KFC!!!

Singapore is a bit warm like

Last time I posted we were about to head to Disneyland but that didn't happen. By the time we got organised and had breakfast it was getting into the middle of the afternoon so we went up Victoria Peak instead. The easiest way to get up was to take the tram which climbs the side of the hill at a ridiculously steep angle, so we did that. The views from the top were amazing. I'll try and get a couple of photos on here. We stayed there 'til it got dark so we could take in the view with all the lights. We then went back down and walked along the south side of the river and watched the light show from that side. We couldn't hear the music but to be honest we just needed an excuse to sit down after all the walking we'd been doing.

The next day we got up, had breakfast and got a bus to the beach at Stanley. We spent a couple of hours sunbathing then took a walk round the shops at Stanley Plaza. We had our dinner there(steaks unsurprisingly). We then got the bus back and took a walk round a few shops so Mac could buy a suit before heading off for a relatively early night.

The next morning we got a bus to the airport and had a trouble-free flight to Singapore. Our hostel is directly across the road from an MRT station so that made finding it pretty easy, although we walked past it twice before we saw it. We checked in then headed off for a walk, past Raffles Hotel, and eventually ended up in the Suntec Centre, a shopping mall. We had our tea then went to see the world's biggest water fountain which is in the middle of the shopping centre. After that we walked home and KO'd in our room.

Today we got up, had a bite to eat and walked along Orchard Road. the main shoping street in Singapore. It's so hot and humid here that it was pretty hard going and we kept diving into air-conditioned shopping centres to cool off. We've not long returned to our hostel for a break before we head out for tea. Mac's about to take more money out the bank so he can buy a shirt from Topman.